New Details Are Discovered About The Smaller A5 Chip
03/13/2013 16:21
A few days ago we reported that Apple tweaked the A5 chip inside the Apple TV for a smaller version. Many people are wondering how Apple could do this without having to change any internal components.
Yesterday, people at Chipworks determined that Samsung was still manufacturing the “new” A5 chip. This is really surprising since Apple dumped Samsung for TSMC back in January. They also found that the chip is using the 32-nanometer process used for the bigger A5 chip. This shows that Apple has undertaken big design changes for the chip.
Chipworks got a full image die of the smaller chip (as shown above), revealing that the smaller chip has a single-core ARM CPU. The older version of the A5 chip contained a dual-core chip with one core disabled while the new one has just one core only. While the CPUs are different in the chips, the GPUs are both dual-core.
On top of all of this is revamped analog components such as resistors and capacitors. All of this results in a mixed signal chip that seems to be very technical for the 32-nanometer process.
It is still unclear why Apple made this move to make a smaller, but just as equivalent to the older A5 chip, chip.
Source: MacRumors